Nintendo Highlights The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild During First Day of E3

Nintendo kicked off its presence at the E3 video game trade show in Los Angeles with the first in-depth look at gameplay from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and the Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon games. Nintendo Treehouse: Live dedicated the rest of its schedule for the day to showcasing more content from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The massive demo for E3 represents just a fraction of the total game, but beyond the physical size of the demo is the depth of the experiences offered, which go well beyond the expanse of the map. Even with a full day of demos, Nintendo only began to scratch the surface of this stunning open-air adventure.

HIGHLIGHTS

Shrines of Trials: More than 100 of these locations are scattered around the world for players to find, and in some cases finding the Shrines can be a puzzle in itself. As a result, Shrines offer more compact challenges that can be solved in a variety of ways. In order to earn a Spirit Orb from the monks who designed these challenges, players must overcome challenges or solve puzzles.

Runes: While exploring Shrines, players can earn Runes. For instance, the Magnesis Rune can help Link lift and toss metal objects. The Remote Bomb has two different types of bombs: rolling spherical ones and cubical ones that stay in place. The Stasis Rune briefly stops moving objects, while the Cryonis Rune freezes water and causes an ice pillar to appear.

Weapons and Combat: The game contains a wide variety of weapons, many new to the series. Players must find weapons or take them from enemies, but weapons wear out as you use them. Players can also time offensive and defensive maneuvers to temporarily slow time and connect with a flurry of strikes against their opponent.

Food: In another break with conventional gameplay for the series, players hoping to replenish their hearts or score some easy rupees will come up empty when they cut grass. Link can forage for a variety of foods in his environment, including apples and mushrooms. He can also hunt for food. Consuming uncooked foods gives him a modest health increase, but cooking different kinds of ingredients together will result in dishes with different effects, such as cold or heat resistance, for a limited amount of time.

Climate: From snowy areas to desert heat, Link must dress appropriately for the weather. If he needs to stay warm, he can don appropriate clothing, warm himself with a fiery torch or even eat food to maintain his body temperature and his health. Link also needs to be careful during lightning storms – if he is equipped with metal equipment during a downpour, he can find himself attracting deadly lightning bolts.

amiibo Compatibility: A new series of detailed amiibo figures specific to the game were announced this morning, and Treehouse staff finally revealed how the Wolf Link amiibo from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD will connect to the game. When players tap a Wolf Link amiibo to the Wii U GamePad controller, Wolf Link will join Link to attack enemies on his own. He initially has three hearts, but players can raise his heart count by completing the Cave of Shadows and carrying over the save data from The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD. Wolf Link can be summoned once a day, and disappears when his hearts run out. However, you can use Wolf Link again the next day.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is scheduled to launch simultaneously for both Wii U and Nintendo’s next system, code-named NX, in 2017.